Following a nationwide search, Glenn Currier, MD, MPH, has been appointed the new chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.
Dr. Currier will come to USF Health from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, where he is professor of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine and associate chair for Clinical Services. He starts here part time in April and will assume leadership of the department full time July 1.
“We look forward to Dr. Currier joining our USF Health team, and thank Dr. Kailie Shaw, who has done an exemplary job serving as interim chair of our psychiatry department during the search,” said Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.
Dr. Glenn Currier has expertise in health services research and treatment practices in emergency settings and the organization of psychiatric clinical services.
Dr. Shaw, professor emeritus in the psychiatry department, will resume her role as a faculty member when Dr. Currier joins USF Health.
Dr. Currier brings to USF a strong background in medical student and residency education and comprehensive expertise in health services research, treatment practices in emergency settings and the organization of psychiatric clinical services. He has conducted research and clinical care across academic and community settings as well as within the VA health system.
“In a changing health care environment with increased emphasis on reduced costs and improved outcomes, Dr. Currier can help USF Health prepare to meet two major challenges facing psychiatry today: delivering quality mental health services within a primary care context and reducing deaths among veterans at risk for suicide, who often enter the health care system through emergency departments,” Dr. Lockwood said. “Dr. Currier will also help us advance the interdisciplinary research and integrated care aspects of our collaborative neuropsychiatry initiative.”
Dr. Currier received his bachelor’s degree in economics and political science at Colby College in his home state of Maine, and was a research associate at the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates prior to entering medical school. He holds an MD degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree in public health from Yale University, where he specialized in health services research. Following residency training in psychiatry and internal medicine at Yale, he completed a fellowship in emergency psychiatry at NYU-Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Before to moving to Rochester several years ago, Dr. Currier was the director of Consultation Liaison and Emergency Psychiatry at Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center.
Dr. Currier completed a National Institute of Mental Health-funded K-23 career development award consisting of a randomized controlled clinical trial testing the use of mobile crisis teams to connect patients discharged from emergency departments with ongoing outpatient mental health care. Dr. Currier’s more recent research includes a joint suicide surveillance project, funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and based in emergency departments at Rochester Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. He is also one of the principal investigators for the multisite trial of a safety-planning behavioral intervention implemented in nine VA emergency departments across the United States.
Dr. Currier is a member of the Psychiatry Clinical Practice Subcommittee of the American College of Emergency Physicians and a past president of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry. He received the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Lifesaver’s Research Award in 2009
He is the author or co-author of more than 50 publications focused primarily on psychiatric research and treatment in emergency departments, particularly relevant to care of suicidal individuals and veterans.
Dr. Currier is the father of four teenagers — Tom, 19; Nick, 17; Amy, 15; and Mike, 13. He is an avid Great Lakes sailor who says he looks forward to the challenge of saltwater sailing in a warmer climate.
